go directly to pests1. Cowpea IntroductionCowpea is an important legume in northern Namibia. Most farmers grow cowpea intercropped with the main crop, Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) or with sorghum (Sorghum bicolor). Occasionally, cowpea is grown in a plot of its own in the pearl millet field. Cowpea is fairly drought tolerant and will often produce a crop even in very dry years.Cowpea is a multi-purpose crop. It may be grown for its pods or it may be grown mainly for using the leaves. The traditional varieties are therefore long, creeping types that produce a wealth of leaves and set a moderate number of pods late in the season. Newly introduced varieties are mainly of the bushy, determinate type, producing less leaves but more pods and seeds. Research on cowpea in northern Namibia has been on-going for years and the limited manpower resources were mainly used for on-station variety testing. The legumes reproduce much slower than cereals and it has often been a problem to bulk up enough seed of promising varieties for testing. With the introduction of the Farming Systems Research approach the work has become more farmer-oriented and looks into a wider range of constraints for cowpea production. Seed multiplication is still done on-station but most of the testing is now performed with farmers in their own fields. 2. Cowpea pestsThe cowpea flowers and the lush growth of leaves attract a large number of pest, most of which are of little importance. The main pest during the growing season are the aphids, the main storage pest are the bruchids. Both of these pests can severely reduce the yield of cowpea or the stored grain.Clavigralla and bean fly are also considered important pests although they are not so widespread yet. More information is need on these two pests to evaluate the extent of damage in farmers' fields. Apart from these pests, cowpea flowers are visited by a large number of beetles. Under normal circumstances these beetles do limited damage to the flowers and are at present not considered so important. a. Major pests
b. Minor pests
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